Okay, everything was going pretty well in making my first Tomme following linuxboy's recipe....

I had pressed under whey with 5 lbs for 15 minutes, flipped and pressed with 10 lbs for 15 minutes, flipped and pressed with 15 lbs for 30 minutes. Then I stripped off the muslin, drained the whey, and began pressing with 15 lbs in the pot until 5.4 pH.

After an hour I checked the pressing progress. Whoa! The 5 lb and 10 lb weights had slid off-center and the cheese in the mold was severely lopsided. Man, what to do now?

I rewrapped the wheel with the muslin, heated up some whey, and put the cheese back into the mold. The mold went back into the pot with the heated whey. I then used my press to apply gentle pressure to the high side of the lopsided wheel. It was an off-center pressing with 5 lb using 2 pulleys for 10 minutes (about 83 lbs total applied pressure).

After that pressing, the wheel looked a little more normal. Then I began pressing on-center using a wrench for the suspended weight. According to the recipe, I needed to apply 15-20 lbs. By my spreadsheet a one pound weight would do the trick. I figured the wrench was about a pound. The wrench combined with 2 pulleys gave me what I needed to complete my pressing.

So that convinced me not to stack my weights in the pot (or anywhere) unattended. Only one hour had gone by. I hate to imagine what would have happened had I confidently stacked the weights in the pot and went to bed. As it was, I was able to correct that mistake. I just thought I could get by with a little weight in the pot for this cheese. I will use my press in the future.

Hope this serves as a heads-up to anyone else heading towards this disaster.

Nice save! And fantastic looking cheese too. I'm working on a press and considering adding pulleys. I'm trying to make out your setup from these pics but hard to tell. I've looked at some others on this site. Are there pics of your press/pulley system posted here somewhere? Thanks.Susan

Today I made a "white" Gouda with peppers added and during the pressing stage it started to resemble your cheese.Luckily I caught it early on, (within the first 5 minutes), and was able to correct it.I had started to think that Carter's super press was invincible but I now know that it's very important to make sure the follower is centered perfectly before applying the pressure.

Regardless of how it looks, the proof is in the eating. Once it's sliced up nobody has to know that it was once a leaning tower.

I decided for this first Tomme effort I would give the rind a little color and store it away for awhile. To 5 cups of merlot wine I added 2 tsp CACL2 and 1 cup of kosher salt. Too much of something?

After removing the wheel from the press, I had dried it at room temp (64-68F) for two days. Then I moved it to the cave for another 22 days (50-58F) to continue drying. It seemed dry enough and the rind seemed to be pretty good so I put it into the merlot-brine for 6 hours (in the fridge), flipping it at the halfway point. Then I removed it from the merlot-brine, dried it, and kept it in the cave overnight. In the morning I put it back into the merlot-brine for another 10 hours, flipping it at the halfway point. After that I removed it, dried it off, put it back into the cave to dry some more, and dumped the merlot-brine. Three days later I checked it, dried it, and vacuum-bagged it. Fingers crossed. This one I expect will sit in the back of the cave for 9-12 months.

I would like to also make another Tomme, but this time develop a rind with complex flora.